Tag Archives: food security

In this post yesterday, I mentioned the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2015, a bill currently in committee in both houses of Congress. The proposed legislation includes detailed requirements on what and how U.S. companies with more than $100 million in annual sales revenues would be required to publicly disclose […]

The SCAA’s annual Symposium and 23d annual expo are right around the corner. Both events will screen a new documentary titled “After the Harvest: Hunger in the Coffeelands.” Get a sneak preview here. A note from the producers: “This film was created, with support from the Coffee Trust and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, to educate […]

Food Security Solutions revolved around hands-on workshops designed to reduce hunger in the coffeelands. It had little coffee-specific content and was not designed to conduct coffee-related business. But if the experience of one CRS partner organization is any indication, this kind of non-coffee activity can have a big influence on the

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (known as CIAT, its acronym in Spanish) collaborated several years ago on research in Mexico and Central America that has helped put the issue of food security on the map in the specialty coffee industry. My colleagues in East Africa will be conducting similar research in Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda in the coming months in connection with Green Mountain-funded food security projects in those countries. As far as I know, this will be the first-ever household-level data on hunger in the coffeelands in East Africa.

Fresh Cup magazine has published a brief news story in its July issue on Food Security Solutions — the four-day workshop convened by Sustainable Harvest in Nicaragua in June. We are grateful to Fresh Cup for recognizing the importance of the first-ever multistakeholder gathering devoted exclusively to the issue of hunger.

Yesterday — day three of Food Security Solutions — we began the day by dividing into groups again to begin another two-day workshop. In the evening, we ended the day by coming together to discuss an issue that affects us all and will shape the food security lanscape for generations to come — climate change. In between, I found time to visit with farmers and staff of CECOCAFEN and spend some time with the very talented photographer Clay Enos.

I spent the first day of the Food Security Solutions event here in Nicaragua with a few dozen coffee farmers talking about — and searching for — mushrooms. Today was (mostly) talk. We were sent on a scavenger hunt during the lunch recess, tasked with finding big, beautiful or otherwise notable mushrooms. Here are some samples of the incredible finds that people made.

In a few minutes I will leave the swelter of Managua and drive to the cool shade of the coffeelands overlooking Matagalpa for a four-day workshop where dozens of smallholder coffee farmers from across Mexico and Central America will gather to talk about something other than coffee: how to reduce hunger in the coffeelands.